St. Mary Students Learn About Having Disability
On April 28, St. Mary Star of the Sea, 6424 S. Kenneth Ave., put on a disability fair for third- and fourth-graders.
Micaela Gamboa, a senior at Queen of Peace High School and an Oak Lawn resident, ran the fair as part of the Girl Scouts “Gold Award.”
This past summer, she took a summer camp with disabled girls about her age and participated in many activities that showed what it was like to be disabled.
Gamboa said that the disabled people in the summer camp don’t want people to feel sorry for them.
“They want to be accepted and don’t want to be seen for their disability,” said Gamboa.
So she is trying to teach third- and fourth-graders what it would be like if they had some kind of physical or other disability. Students were “assigned” physical disadvantages at stations and had to perform everyday activities.
Some of the stations included having to steer a wheelchair, walk up and down stairs with splits on their legs, have wax paper cover their eyes and have another student lead them, read stories that have letters appear wrong to show what a dyslexic person goes through, wear thick gloves and try to open jars like someone with arthritis, and try to put puzzles together with special glasses that show what it like to live with sight impairments.
This is something that Gamboa has been planning with the school since last September. The idea is to teach the students at a young age to understand what people with disabilities have to go through.
Before the fair started, Gamboa made some opening comments and had a power point demonstration for the students. Then the students broke off into smaller groups to go around to the different stations.
“They just want to have fun and live their lives just like anyone else,” said Gamboa about people with disabilities.
Students were running around, hopping on one leg with a walker and struggling to get through a wheelchair obstacle course. Most said that what they were doing was very difficult.
Some struggled to put a puzzle together while wearing glasses with vaseline on them, trying to show what someone with sight difficulties goes through. Others were laughing at how badly they cut out a star figure with their non-dominant hand.
After closing remarks, students talked about what their experiences were like that day with a simulation of different disabilities.
“We are just trying to teach them at a young age not to judge others,” said Gamboa.